Dean Franklin (Literature)

Short Fiction

 

"Who Killed Walter Neilson?" by Dean Franklin

It took a remarkable bit of detective work to discover who killed Walter Neilson. Actually, Fate betrayed Neilson's murderer as you will see by the facts in the case. Neilson was the kind of a man everyone likes. His death was a blow to the pleasant little community of Manhasset, New York.

But even the weather was unpleasant on the Saturday morning that Neilson was murdered. Big, wet snowflakes were falling as Neilson wriggled into his bulky overcoat and started to leave his gasoline station. He had one hundred dollars in his pocket, and was on his way to pay the rent for a destitute family that was facing eviction. Yes, Walter Neilson was a big-hearted guy.

A few minutes later when Tom Jenkins drew up in his gasoline truck to Neilson's filling station he sensed that something was wrong. He discovered that the door was locked and there was no attendant.

Tom Jenkins knew that Mrs. Marion Munion whose house was next door to Neilson's station often lent him a hand, so he rang her doorbell to ask if Neilson had left word about the amount of gasoline he needed.

Mrs. Munion answered the door and told Tom Jenkins that since it was after lunchtime, Neilson should be there. She knew her neighbor needed gasoline, so she offered to go over and open the station so the tanks could be filled.

Walter Neilson trusted Mrs. Munion, and had given her a key to the filling station. Tom Jenkins followed her to the back door near the grease pit, and waited while she opened it. Mrs. Munion pushed the door back and started to step inside. But suddenly a scream tore from her throat, and Tom Jenkins stepped in close to support her in case she fainted. Inside, Walter Neilson lay on his back. Without feeling his pulse, Mrs. Munion and Tom Jenkins knew that Neilson was dead.

The police were summoned immediately, but it wasn't until suppertime that the medical examiner issued a report on the autopsy declaring that Neilson had been murdered. His findings were that the filling station operator had been killed by a blow on the head, delivered from behind. The blow had caused a depressed skull fracture. Strangely enough, the wound had not bled.

The chief of police was faced with many more perplexing angles as the investigation got under way. In the first place it was definitely established that both the front and rear door of the filling station were locked at the time Mrs. Munion went over and discovered the body.

Secondly, the motive was a mystery. It wasn't robbery, for the police found over $160 in the cash drawer. Or was that the motive? The police learned from Mrs. Munion that Neilson had one hundred dollars in his pocket, and there was no trace of the money on the body.

But the police were not positive about the robbery motive, so they began an investigation around town and turned up a suspect who was reported to have threatened Neilson with bodily harm. He was a tavern keeper, husky and big-fisted, but he was cleverly evasive when the police began to question him.

Then the officers turned a ruse. "What do you mean by telling us you've heard of Neilson? Didn't you tell him that you'd beat him up if he tried to close down your tavern by making a complaint?"

Faced with the facts, the tavern keeper lost his nerve. "Yeah, but I didn't knock Neilson over the head," he pleaded.

"How did you know he was struck on the head?" one of the officers snapped back.

The tavern keeper realized that he had made a slip of the tongue, and couldn't take back what he had said. He tried to make the best of it. "But I didn't murder him—honest I didn't. When one of the boys told me that Neilson had been talkin' again about closin' me up, I went over to his gas station. The front door was closed but unlocked, so I walked in and snapped the catch on the lock because I didn't want anybody comin' in when I was talkin' with Neilson.

"But the moment after I stepped inside I saw Neilson, layin' there in the back room. An' I knew by the way he was stretched out on his back that he was dead. Naturally, I knew I was on a spot, so I turned on my heels and ran out, slamming the door behind me."

While the police were weighing the tavern keeper's alibi, the technical laboratory men were busy at the murder scene. Recalling that Neilson's fatal wound had not bled, they were interested to discover bloodstains in the washroom on a work bench and around the cash register.

The bloodstains were fresh, and there was a likely possibility that they had been left by the killer. But would the laboratory sleuths be able to detect the killer by the blood?

Tests were made to determine if the bloodstains were the same type blood of the victim. But almost as soon as the slides were put under the microscope it was discovered that the blood was infected with malaria microbes.

Neilson had never had malaria. A check with the board of health revealed that no one in or near Manhasset had been recently infected with the disease. Who, then, could have left the bloodstains at the murder scene?

It was logical to assume that the killer was a recently discharged soldier or sailor who had contracted the ailment in the South Pacific.

So the police immediately began going through the files of the local Selective Service Board to learn if any veteran in the locality had been discharged with a case of malaria. The patient examination of the draft board records required more than sixt days; when completed, the police found that their efforts had been in vain. None of the soldiers and sailors who had reported back to the local board upon discharge had been a victim of malaria.

But this set-back did not discourage the detectives. Who else might be infected with malaria, they asked themselves. They began a check on the file of 4-F's and hospitals and doctors in nearby towns. Still no lead turned up.

Then one of the detectives who had been calling frequently at the tavern operated by the first suspect, overheard someone mention that a fellow named John Ranford, a merchant seaman, had been to the South Pacific and returned to Manhasset with a case of malaria.

The person who dropped this vital piece of information was a teenage girl.

"You'd better tell me all you know about John Ranford," the detective said sternly.

The girl turned white and her hands were trembling as she spoke. "Well, I did see him loafing around Neilson's station on the day he was killed. I suspected John murdered him because I knew he had a grudge against him. But I was afraid to say anything about it because I knew if John heard that I'd been talking, he'd fix me somehow."

But the girl's remarks and the malaria-infected bloodstains were not enough evidence to book Ranford for murder. The police arrested him in his furnished room, and held him as a material witness.

The investigation was resolving at a whirlwind pace again. Detectives literally turned Ranford's room upside down in their search for evidence that would link him to the murder. Then one of the sleuths suddenly recalled that Neilson had been found wearing an overcoat but there was no hat belonging to him in the gas station. Attention was immediately focused on Ranford's closet.

Yes, they found a gray hat—and the initials on the sweatband were W. N.—which stood for Walter Neilson!

Faced with this evidence, Ranford admitted that he had slugged Neilson with a tire iron but had not meant to kill him. Realizing that the blow was fatal, he had become jittery and took only the money on Neilson's person. In his haste, he had scratched his hand, which accounted for the malaria-infected bloodstains.

When he was tried for first degree murder, Ranford denied his confession and pleaded not guilty. But the girl's testimony and the evidence of the bloodstains and the hat did not leave any doubt in the minds of the jury. Ranford was found guilty and was sentenced to die in the electric chair. On May 25, 1944, the sentence was fulfilled in the death house at Sing Sing Prison.

"Mask of the Swahili Terror" by Dean Franklin

"The natives just become wild-eyed and speechless when I ask them to describe the monster," Larry Kincaid, the American big game hunter told his host, District Commissioner Fleming on the latter's verandah overlooking the headwaters of the Nile.

"No wonder!" Fleming snorted. "None of Giganto's victims has ever lived long enough to talk. But some of the natives swear that the devil is not a gorilla but a man. Others declare that it must be part man and part beast. Whichever the case, the monster is the worst scourge that has attacked my district since I've held the post."

Larry Kincaid rose from the wicker chair and flexed his sun-bronzed arms. There was a trace of a grin in the corners of his mouth. "I've heard many stories about the monster. That's why I came up here in my amphibian. With the horns or head of every African game animal among my trophies, I thought this monster would give me an opportunity to bag something unique. Get your Mauser and we'll fly up to the pool and see if we can spot the Swahili Terror."

Commissioner Fleming boosted himself from his chair. His eyes were icy as they met Larry's. "I'm afraid you haven't taken the reports seriously," he said. "The best hunters in my district have hunted this gorilla. Those who didn't find his tracks came back. The hunters who picked up the monster's trail were later found—horribly mangled. Are you still game?"

"You bet!" Larry exclaimed. "I'm all the more anxious to meet Giganto."

Larry Kincaid ran down the stringer to where his plane was moored, and he got the engine purring by the time Fleming showed up with his Mauser rifle. But Fleming didn't utter a word while Larry taxied to midstream for the takeoff, and it wasn't until the plane was winging over the dense jungle until Larry broke the silence.

"You'll have to tell me where to set her down." Larry told the commissioner. "There's quicksand along the shores of the pool, and we want to get out on hard ground."

"There's a ledge by a cluster of thorn trees," Fleming told him. "You can tie up there."

Larry brought his ship down on the surface of the long, algae-coated pool and coasted her over to the ledge. Grabbing his double-barreled magnum rifle he hopped from the amphibian's bow and made a line fast to the nearest thorn trunk. Fleming followed him up the dusty bank.

Fleming pointed across a sun-baked veldt. "We'll have to cut across here to reach the thickets. Sometimes there are lions in this grass, so keep your eyes open."

There was a sparkle in Larry Kincaid's eyes as he fell in step behind the commissioner. It was rough going through the saw-toothed grass and both hunters were out of breath when they reached the dense growth of thorns that bordered the far side of the veldt.

They sat down and lighted cigarettes, their rifles resting across their knees. The sun was already dipping in the west.

A scuffling sound in the thorns behind them made Larry turn suddenly. He grasped his rifle, snapped off the safety and lunged to his feet. Larry was swinging his rifle around to take aim at the huge shape which had parted the thorn bushes when a large rock struck his forehead a glancing blow. Stunned for an instant, Larry tripped and fell over Fleming who was starting to get up.

For several seconds both men were helpless as the huge gorilla lumbered out of the thorns behind them. Larry pulled his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. But his gun failed to fire!

Cold sweat beaded Larry's forehead. He knew that when he had dropped the rifle the trigger spring must have been jarred loose. Fleming's Mauser had fallen out of reach, and there was no way to halt the gorilla's charge!

The monster was within three strides of the commissioner as Larry's hands tightened around the end of his gun barrel. Larry swung the rifle in a wide arc, and the walnut stock struck with a sickening thud against the gorilla's skull. For an instant the huge ape swayed on his heels, then he crashed at Fleming's feet.

Fleming swung the sights of his Mauser down, firing as he stepped back. The mushroom bullet tore a wide hole in the back of the gorilla's head.

As Larry bent over the hairy body he let out a short yell. "The natives were right!" he exclaimed. "This thing isn't a gorilla. It's a man—a human in a cleverly fashioned gorilla skin!"

Larry stuck his hunting knife into the black hide below the neck and pulled the blade down. The leathery gorilla skin spread apart, revealing a sweat-drenched human back. "Who the deuce would pull a stunt like this?" Larry Kincaid demanded.

Commissioner Fleming was already loosening the gorilla mask from the head. As he pulled it free he gasped out: "Bongalu—Chief Bongalu! The natives thought he had vanished over a year ago!"

Fleming handed Larry the gorilla mask and rose to his feet. "I can't understand this," the commissioner said. "The only thing we can do now is cover the body so the vultures won't devour it, and go back and ask the Swahili witch doctor what was behind Chief Bongalu's disappearance.

They covered the body quickly with stones and dead thorn branches. When they were ready to leave, Larry picked up his rifle and discovered that there was a deep dent in the wallnut stock. "I must have given him a terrific wallop," he told Fleming. The commissioner examined the stock of Harry's rifle, nodded his head and grinned.

"My bullet didn't kill him," Fleming said. "He was dead before he fell. You showed a lot of courage, Kincaid. If your blow had missed, we'd both be dead now."

Larry Kincaid picked up the gorilla mask and they started back across the veldt. Crocodiles slithered down the bank as they approached the amphibian, and across the pool a lion roared.

It was growing dark by the time they came down on the river in front of the commissioner's bungalow. A small group of natives were waiting on the stringer, and when Larry stepped out with the gorilla mask under his arm, the natives began chattering wildly.

Larry held up the mask for them to see. "Giganto is dead, boys. Bwana Fleming and I killed him. Call your witch doctor. There's something very important we want to ask him."

Muttering happily, the natives backed off the stringer and were off at a run toward the nearby village. In ten minutes they were back, trailing behind their grotesquely masked witch doctor who hobbled on two canes.

The witch doctor came up to Fleming's verandah alone. When he saw the gorilla mask Larry held in his lap he made a hissing sound, nodding his head and swaying on his gnarled feet.

Fleming addressed him. "It was Chief Bongalu. How can you explain his actions? When he disappeared, all the natives thought he had fallen into a crocodile pool."

The witch doctor made a sign with his bony fingers to ward off evil spirits. "Bongalu have crazy ideas — you remember? He big fella, an' very proud. He think he too big to be just chief. He want to be god — gorilla god. But me an' elders—we say no! In few days Bongalu he go an' we never see him again."

Larry spoke up. "You wouldn't let him become a god, so he disguised himself as a huge gorilla and turned against everyone."

"You keep him mask," the witch doctor told Larry. "My people thank you."

"Thank your people for me," Larry said. "This gorilla mask will be the prize trophy in my collection!"